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Spiced Tomatoes

A preserved sauce of tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, mace, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine the tomatoes and sugar.

  2. Add the vinegar, mace, cloves, and cinnamon.

  3. Mix well and cook slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

Jar and serve

  1. Seal the mixture in glass jars.

  2. Serve as a nice sauce for game.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and moisture, which cook down into a thick sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity, and it thickens the sauce as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Mace
Contributes a warm, delicate aroma.
Cloves
Contributes a strong, warm aroma that carries through the sauce.
Cinnamon
Contributes a sweet, warm aroma.

The step that matters

Cook slowly and mix well. Sugar-rich tomato mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of a pot over heat. Mixing well and keeping the heat low prevents burning and lets the sauce thicken gradually as water evaporates.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, mace, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, mace, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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